For him I should do what no one had been able to do for me--detain him in that "world of fine fabling" where everything is true that ought to be; where the earth is a running course, fascinating in its surprises of open road and tangled hedgerow; where mere indiscriminate smelling is keenest ecstasy; and where the fact that robins have eluded one's fleetest rush to-day, by an amazing and unfair trick of levitation, is not the slightest promise that they can escape our interested mouthing on the morrow.
Doubtless he would be a remarkably foolish dog in his old age; but I, growing old beside him, would learn wisely foolish things from his excellent folly.

I knew we should both be happier for it; knew it was best for us both to prove that my thin white friend had been born chiefly to display the acute elegance of his bones and the beauty of hopeful effort.
It was this last that kept him thin.

When I took to the road, he travelled five miles to my every one, circling me widely, ranging far over the hills in mad dashes, or running straight and swiftly on the road, vanishing in a white fog of dust.

Walking slowly to avoid this, I would only meet him emerging from a fresh cloud of it with a glad tongue thrown out to the breeze.

Again, there were desperate plunges into wayside underbrush or down steep ravines, whence I would hear rapid splashing through a hidden stream and short, plaintive cries to tell that that wonderful, unseen wood-presence of a thousand provoking scents had once more cunningly evaded him.
Also did he love to swim stoutly across a field of growing wheat, his head alone showing above the green waves.